Coliban Water is renewing a 100-year-old sewer main under one of Bendigo’s busiest intersections with minimal disruption to traffic and no interruption to sewer services.
Manager Infrastructure Corey Bourne said the works at Charing Cross, close to the Alexandra Fountain, have been scheduled to take place at night when there are low flows in the sewer main.
“As with all our works, we give careful consideration to how we can minimise disruption to customers, businesses and traffic,” said Mr Bourne.
“The sewer main is around 100 years old and will be renewed using a trenchless technique which enables us to keep the road open to traffic at all times and have no interruption to our customers’ sewer service.
“We are relining 88 metres of 450 millimetre diameter pipe and 77 metres of 375 millimetre diameter pipe, two of our large mains that transfer wastewater to our Bendigo Water Reclamation Plant in Epsom,” said Mr Bourne.
A trenchless technique called Rib-Loc is being used to renew the main. This involves relining the pipe with a spiral bound PVC that restores the structural integrity and reliability of the sewer main.
The relining is carried out from the sewer maintenance holes eliminating the need to excavate and will increase the pipe’s life expectancy by at least another 50 years.
“The ongoing renewal of sewer mains across our region is an integral part of our operations to ensure we maintain and deliver services to customers.
“We inspect sewer mains by feeding through a CCTV camera. The footage is then reviewed to identify sections of the main that have been damaged and need to be renewed.
“The main under Charing Cross was constructed in 1923 and is the original concrete pipe from the first Bendigo sewer system.
“When the Bendigo sewer system was completed in 1923 it had an instant impact on people’s lives, dramatically reducing the number of deaths related to water-borne diseases, such as cholera and typhoid,” said Mr Bourne.
There are 1,957 kilometres of sewer mains in the Coliban Water region, which is the equivalent distance from Bendigo to Alice Springs.
In 2017/18, Coliban Water renewed 6.1 kilometres of sewer main at a cost of $1.2 million.
The contractor for the sewer main renewal works is Interflow.
For further information see our Water and Sewer Main Renewal page and for current works in our region see our Planned works and interruptions page.
Last updated on 10 Jul 2019